View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by St Andrews Research Repository 1 „After his death a great tribulation came to Italy…‟ Dynastic politics and aristocratic factions after the death of Louis II, c. 870-c. 890 Simon MacLean 1. Introduction Near the end of his continuation of Paul the Deacon‟s History of the Lombards, the late- ninth century historian Andrew of Bergamo recorded the death of the emperor Louis II (855-75), in whose funeral he had participated.1 Louis was in many ways the central figure of Andrew‟s text, and he regarded the emperor‟s demise as having grave consequences: „after his death a great tribulation came to Italy‟ he lamented in his penultimate extant chapter.2 Italy had been ruled since 774 by the Carolingians, a Frankish dynasty from north of the Alps. The disintegration of their empire in 888, followed by several decades during which the political landscape was dominated by complex struggles between rival rulers and aristocratic factions, has given Andrew‟s gloomy statement the ring of eery prophecy.3 By the time the powerful Saxon king Otto I arrived to assert himself on this fractured landscape in the 950s, he was but the latest in a long line of transalpine rulers who sought to benefit from the internecine divisions which ran through the Italian political community. It is little wonder that Liutprand of Cremona, the kingdom‟s next major historian, looked back from Otto‟s reign over the pockmarked history of the previous half century and remarked that „the Italians always like to have two kings, so that they can use one to terrorise the other.‟4 Accordingly, modern historians have come to agree that 875 was a major turning point in Italian political history, and that the historical era bookended by Louis‟s death and Otto‟s arrival 1 Andrew, Historia, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SRL (Hanover, 1878), c. 18, p. 229. For help with this article I am grateful to Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, Conrad Leyser, Janet Nelson, Geoff West and Chris Wickham. 2 Andrew, Historia, c. 19, p. 229: „Post cuius obitum magna tribulatio in Italia advenit.‟ 3 The classic narrative of the period is still G. Fasoli, I Re d‟Italia (888-962) (Florence, 1949). 4 Liutprand, Antapodosis, ed. P. Chiesa, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 156 (Turnhout, 1998), I.37, p. 26. 2 (and by the remarks of Andrew and Liutprand) should be regarded as a distinct period, characterised above all by weak kingship and conflict between aristocratic factions.5 This is hard to argue with as a general description of this period, which coincides with an era of uncertainty across the continent between the end of the Carolingian Empire and the rise of its Ottonian successor, but it is more difficult to explain why warring aristocratic factions came to dominate the political stage. Historians have tended to avoid this question by using a generalised vocabulary of „chaos‟ and „crisis‟ derived from two central assumptions: that groups within the Italian nobility harboured „pro-French‟ and „pro-German‟ sympathies6; and that the aristocracy „rose‟ in the ninth century at the expense of the kings.7 In this view, most systematically and influentially expounded in a classic article by Hagen Keller, the weak post-Louis II kings were not only unable to restrain their nobles but were even forced to recognise, empower and institutionalise rising aristocratic power.8 However, recent scholarship has thrown doubt on the central assumptions underpinning these arguments, which ultimately stem from the grand narratives of European history established in the nineteenth century. Historians are increasingly cautious about both the projection of modern national identities onto the past 5 P. Delogu, „Vescovi, conti e sovrani nella crisi del regno Italico (ricerche sull‟aristocrazia Carolingia in Italia III)‟, in Annali della scuola speciale per archivisti e bibliotecari dell‟Università di Roma 8 (1968), pp. 3-72, at p. 3. On 875 as a turning point: O. Capitani, Storia dell‟Italia medievale, 410-1216 (Rome and Bari, 1986), p. 126; G. Arnaldi, Natale 875. Poetica, ecclesiologica, cultura del papato altomedievale (Rome, 1990), p. 25; G. Albertoni, L‟Italia Carolingia (Rome, 1997), pp. 55-8; D. Arnold, Johannes VIII. Päpstliche Herrschaft in den karolingischen Teilreichen am Ende des 9. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt, 2005), pp. 64-5. 6 Delogu, „Vescovi‟, pp. 35-58. 7 W. Schlesinger, „Die Auflösung des Karlsreiches‟, in W. Braunfels (ed.), Karl der Grosse vol.1 (Düsseldorf, 1965) pp. 792-857 was influential. For critiques of this view see G. Sergi, „L‟Europa Carolingia e la sua dissoluzione‟, in N. Tranfaglia and M. Firpo (eds.), La storia. I grandi problemi dal medioevo all‟Età contemporanea (10 vols., Turin, 1986), ii, pp. 231-62; S. MacLean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 1-22. 8 H. Keller, „Zur Struktur der Königsherrshaft im karolingischen und nachkarolingischen Italien. Der “consiliarius regis” in den italienischen Königsdiplomen des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts‟, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 47 (1967) pp. 123-223; P. Delogu, „Strutture politiche e ideologia nel regno di Lodovico II (recherché sull‟aristocrazia Carolingia in Italia II)‟, in Bullettino dell‟Istituto storico Italiano per il medio evo e archivio Muratoriano 80 (1968), pp. 137-89, at p. 188; C. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy. Central Power and Local Society, 400-1000 (London and Basingstoke, 1981), pp. 168-70; Albertoni, L‟Italia Carolingia, pp. 50-5; P. Cammarosano, Nobili e re. L‟Italia politica dell‟alto medioevo (Rome, 1999), pp. 200-2. For a brief critique of Keller see F. Bougard, „La cour et le gouvernement de Louis II (840-875)‟, in R. Le Jan (ed.), La royauté et les elites dans l‟Europe carolingienne (début IXe siècle aux environs de 920) (Lille, 1998), pp. 249-67, at p. 259. 3 and the characterisation of relationships between kings and aristocrats as a zero-sum game in which one became more powerful in direct proportion to the weakness of the other. The fortunes of rulers in this period were determined less by institutional stability than by their ability to create and manipulate patronage networks among the nobility, whose alliance was essential to the effectiveness of royal power.9 Due to the regional traditions of Italian historiography and the relative paucity of narrative sources, the implications of all this for the dynastic politics of late-ninth- and tenth-century Italy have not been fully explored, with notable exceptions such as Barbara Rosenwein‟s important work on the charters of Berengar I (888-924).10 Taking its cue from Rosenwein‟s insights, the present article focuses on royal-aristocratic politics between about 870 and 890 and aims to throw some light on the detail of a period whose political history has hitherto received minimal scholarly attention. The central argument is that most descriptions of the immediate post-Louis II era mischaracterise the motivations of both aristocrats and kings, and thus misunderstand the relationship between them. By writing them off as symptomatic of „chaos‟, historians have neglected the extent to which the formation of aristocratic factions was conditioned by their ongoing relationship with the political centre, whether or not it was strong. In challenging the simple correlation of royal weakness with aristocratic factionalism, I aim to restore kings to the political history of this period by emphasising the importance of shifts in patterns of dynastic politics and patronage in explaining the behaviour of the nobility.11 The article is structured chronologically to emphasise change over time, but does not seek to provide a comprehensive political narrative. I will look at the factors shaping royal patronage of the aristocracy in two distinct periods: the immediate aftermath of Louis II‟s death; and the reign of the last Carolingian king of Italy, Charles 9 For example: W. Davies and P. Fouracre (eds), Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1995); M. Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: the Middle Rhine Valley, 400- 1000 (Cambridge, 2000). 10 B.H. Rosenwein, „The Family Politics of Berengar I, King of Italy (888-924)‟, Speculum 71 (1996), pp. 247-89; B.H. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space. Power, Restraint and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester, 1999), pp. 137-55. 11 The dynamics here described are quite well-known in general: see S. Gasparri, „The Aristocracy‟, in C. La Rocca (ed.), Italy in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2002), pp. 59-84, esp. pp. 79-82. My argument is that the role of kings has not properly been documented or taken into account. 4 the Fat. By way of conclusion, I contrast my findings with the period after the end of the empire in 888. 2. Aristocratic factions and the death of Louis II (875) As Andrew lamented, the immediate aftermath of Louis II‟s death was indeed turbulent. The wealthy Italian realm, with the associated imperial title, was much coveted by various of the late ruler‟s transalpine relatives who were poised to take advantage of his heirlessness. Louis‟s uncle, the west Frankish king Charles the Bald, emerged victorious after fighting off the east Frankish bid of his cousin Karlmann of Bavaria. The conflict came perilously close to open warfare, unusual in Frankish politics of the ninth century, and much incidental damage was done to the property of various important Lombard monasteries.12 The intrigues did not come to an end when Karlmann succeeded Charles as Italian king in 877. The king‟s ill health (he may have suffered a stroke) kept him in Bavaria most of the time and his relatives began jostling for position to succeed him.